[scottlocklin]

Zinc/manganese has been around for decades; in fact, it's the standard issue disposable battery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkaline_battery

"An alkaline battery (IEC code: L) is a type of primary battery which derives its energy from the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide."

The new permutation which allegedly ups the energy density and allows it to be safely recharged supposedly uses a different electrolyte with more manganese ions. The research has been funded in the West for decades, with some interesting new results in 2017. Of course, this is one of those "submarine" "news" articles which originated in someone's marketing department, so it's not entirely clear it's going to be a useful result or yet another pile of woo hoping to hit "human informational centipede" the way a lot of recent woo has.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Can you explain what "woo" means in this context? I've seen it used a lot lately, but it's new to me.

[robocat]

Reading the sibling link, it looks like this person is using "woo" incorrectly in this context. Good science/technology often has failed outcomes (which isn't woo). I'm also presuming the University of Adelaide isn't practicing pseudoscience.

[andrewflnr]

Eh, it's definitely a loose/sarcastic usage of the word, but it works for me.

[52-6F-62]

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo

[soperj]

w is quite close to p on my colemak keyboard. Maybe they meant poo.

[userbinator]

Rechargable alkalines have also been around for several decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_alkaline_battery